Open House

Wednesday, March 8, 1995

Today, I have just finished working on WASC stuff with Aimee, putting together binders containing notes for the report. It has taken over four hours to organize the notes and put the binders together. And while other teachers in the district go to different in-service meetings and workshops, I take these few moments to type in a few words about last night.

Last night was Open House. Usually that means a half-hour meeting in the gym followed by parent visitations to the classrooms. In past years, I’ve offered extra credit to students whose parents attend. At these Open Houses I usually average ten or a dozen parents; that’s with the extra credit and a daily class load of 105 students (back at Pleasant Valley, I’d usually see two to three dozen parents out of 175 daily contacts, but that was with an Honors class). The Honors parents tend to show up at a slightly higher rate than college prep parents, and CP parents show up at a much higher rate than standard students. Even without the offer of extra credit (another bold experiment this year) I had expected to see a dozen or so parents because of the 4/4H class.

I arrived at six, to grade some papers and to put together a display for the English showcase table...this a new activity for Open House. Each department was to set up a table, tooting its own horn and showing what innovations it is using. I put aside examples of my students’ BarCode presentations. At six-thirty, I headed over to the gym. I picked up a program and looked around. Not many people, though our department was gathering. The table looks pretty good. Ms. Harris’ Creative Writing class’s greeting cards looked great, as did the visual interpretations from June Tsuko’s Reading class, and Gloria Henson’s Latino Lit course. I squeezed my disc, BarCode, overhead transparency, and BarCode wand onto the table and mingled in and out of conversations.

John Lead--anti-Pulp Fiction-man--asked me if this year it seemed as if I was working harder doing the same material for diminishing returns. When he mentioned it, it did occur to me that I had felt that way. He nodded, then shook his head. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. So I mingled more, as some parents started to wander into the gym and about the tables. Two younger male teachers talked about their basketball league and how they needed to "bail" early to get to their eight o’clock game. Then a special education student who has been mainstreamed into my English Nine class brought his mother over to meet me. My first parent for the night. We talked, I noted his maturity (an affectation that most of the class--second period--hates, but I admire the attempt), and she was supportive and caring. He then saw his NJROTC commander and they went off to accost him, too. I turned around to see Aimee talking WASC to Mary. I gave the program another glance and smiled... They’d appreciate this.

I walked over and asked if they had seen the program. They shook their heads. I opened it up to show them, and as they perused the opening paragraph, I read it aloud to them in my best game show-host voice:

Please join us on Thursday, March 7, 19945, for "OPEN HOUSE"...

6:30-7:10 General Parent Meeting
7:10-7:15 Cookies & Coffee in the gym
7:15-7:45 Incoming Freshman Parent Orientation
7:45-8:45 Visitations to classrooms

Yesterday was Tuesday, not Thursday. They had to hand-correct the mistaken year. The schedule for the activities was from last year, with no mention made of the departmental showcase.

Now that’s evidence for WASC.

When Bubba announced over the public address for everyone to have a seat, I decided my seat was in my classroom and I repaired there to grade more papers. But before I could grade a single paper, a period one English Nine parent arrived to question me as to why her son--surly and at her side--had academic detention. Why wasn’t she informed earlier that her son was missing assignments? Well, I explained, her son is a slug, a real shit who does nothing in class, and one of the assignments the idiot’s missing is the progress report from two weeks ago that outlined earlier missing assignments. Okay, so, those weren’t the exact words, but I was wishing they were, the way he kept interrupting her as she tried to get answers from me. When I informed her of the situation, she turned on him. It seems he is another special education student, one with a resource period to help him with the work he has in other classes. His resource period is second, right after my class. He had claimed to his mother he never has homework, that he did it in resource. Yet as of Monday, he was missing five assignments. She reminded him that he has no excuse, since third period is NJROTC and he has no fourth period class. This guy has only one academic class and he’s failing it. She left with a weekly outline of assignments and when they are due, as well as the upcoming writing assignments. We’ll see if it works.

I sat down to grade papers. But before I could start, Lisa walked in with Kyle. Fantastic. We talked a bit, then we decided to walk around, visit some other teachers and show off the boy. We visited my next-door neighbor, Jane, a great French teacher whom we are losing at the end of the school year; her husband has just been accepted to UC Berkley’s optometry school. Next, we visited Mary in the library, where Kyle walked a few steps. By then, parents were trickling out of the gym and it was time to go back to my room. Lisa took Kyle home and I settled in for the parental visitations.

All five of them.

I saw two more English Nine parents, both of sweet girls who are receiving A’s in class. Three parents of English 4 students showed up, I think, fearful that their students were being pushed too hard in the 4H combination class. I allayed their fears, especially since two out of the three are doing very well. So I had seven parents for the entire evening. My daily student count is around 93 (artificially low because of the small 4/4H class), and I still only saw seven parents.

I am particularly disappointed by the complete and total lack of Honors parents. Maybe since I had most of these students as 3H’s last year, and they met me at "Back-to-School Night" in October of ‘93 (on the night after Frankie Hunter died), they felt no need to see what their sons and daughters were doing. Typical C.H.S. parental support, all duly reported to WASC as something our campus needs to improve. But how?

I’m not sure about the total school turnout. Aimee’s was great, over two dozen. Bruce Metcalf’s was mediocre, around a dozen. June had ten. I’m willing to bet the administration will pump up the school-wide numbers.

But we know the truth. WASC is coming.

Two weeks and counting.